The Mission: Principles to Model

I was thinking this week of unattached believers. These are people who have trusted Christ as their Savior but have not joined as members of our local church and I think unattached believers are a bit like estranged family members. Once a person becomes saved, they immediately become part of the Christian family by being born again. Since they are a part of the family, they should be immediately joined to the church body through baptism and church membership, because this is the model we see in Acts. When Christians do not join membership, I think they are, in many ways, like estranged family members.

Most of us, I think, have estranged family. One of my own brothers walked away from the family and chooses not to associate with us any longer because he doesn’t believe what the rest of my family believes. This a painful thing. Families are certainly not perfect, and it is an exciting day when brothers and sisters in the faith who know our weaknesses still choose to identify with Christ through us!

Today, Justin, Ryan, Andrew, & Bethany are willingly choosing to associate with us! They are joining our family! By doing this, they are publicly asking us to hold them accountable on their mission: honoring God through the worship of their lives. They are also excited to join our family because they desire to shoulder our load by ministering alongside of us!

In a little while you will get to hear their testimonies and I trust you will be richly blessed! This morning’s message is really a charge of sorts for these four individuals and also to each one of you who are part of the family of First Baptist Church. I want to highlight two principles from this morning’s text that should inspire us to live according to God’s will as brothers and sisters in the faith.

The first principle in this text is...

The Principle of Sold out Living (20-22, 26-29, 34-35, 42)

To me, sold out living means that a person is so consumed with obeying God, loving God, and keeping His commandments that nothing else is in focus and nothing else matters. Accomplishing the mission Christ assigned to us is the only thing that matters to someone who is living a sold-out life! We have several examples of sold out living in Acts 9:20-42. Please read along with me beginning in verse 20...

Acts 9:20–22 ESV

20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

Paul was radically changed. Paul’s own words, which we read last week attest that he, at one point in time been living a sold-out life for Judaism. When Jesus revealed Himself on the road to Damascus, Paul’s priorities changed. As we will see in these verses, sold out living is being solely focused on the cause of Christ. Paul’s focus so drastically changed that all who heard him in verses 20-22 after his conversion were amazed, stunned, confused, and in awe of the radical transformation of his life. He was made new instantly! He was so different, so changed. People knew without a doubt that God can instantly change a very wicked person into a living, breathing reflection of Jesus himself.

Sold out living is zeal. It is a change in priorities. It is living in the power of the Spirit day by day. Moving down the page a couple verses, we read of another example of sold-out living in verses 26-29...

Acts 9:26–29 ESV

26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. 28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him.

Immediately after his conversion, Saul the primary enemy of Jesus became the primary enemy of the Sanhedrin and the rest of unbelieving Israel. Verse 26 tells us that the Hellenists were seeking to kill him and verse 23 informs us that...

Acts 9:23 ESV

23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him,

There is no room in our mission to be wishy-washy. Sold-out living is not wishy-washy like Peter was while Christ was alive. When Peter recieved the Holy Spirit, that old wishy-washy, undecided nature faded away. Spirit empowered living is sold-out living. We have recently been reminded of...

Revelation 3:15–16 ESV

15 “ ‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.

An enemy of no one is also a friend to no one. There is no such thing as middle ground! While Saul was a Judaizer, he was a friend of the Jews and the Hellenistic Jews, but he was an enemy of Christ. When Paul preached the Gospel, He was a friend of Christ and became an enemy to his previous close friends. Sold out Christians are enemies of the world. They are enemies, not our mindset. We should never despise the unsaved, no, we are enemies because we are naturally positioned in opposition against everything the other side believes is. The Gospel is offensive because the light is overwhelming to the deep sea creatures, but Christians never should wage a war of violence. Christian’s war is always a loving one and the unsaved’s war is always a murderous one. Sold out living means choosing a side and never looking back nor regretting that choice. An enemy of no one is a friend to no one.

Challenge

Justin, Ryan, Andrew, Bethany, by joining this church family today, you are admitting your desire and passion to live sold out for the Gospel of Christ. You are admitting that Jesus is no longer your enemy and you are committing to waging a loving warfare upon the lost. This is your Christian duty and the charge that the Scriptures entrust you to live out.

Church family, these four need your help and encouragement. They are called to be wholly-sold out for Christ, but they need your help to do this faithfully. Church family, you also once committed to living sold-out lives for Christ. Are you still living that way or have you become lukewarm? God himself is passionate about the mission, so we also should be as members of His church.

The second principle I see in our text is a deep love for other believers.

The Principle of a Deep Love for Believers (23-31)

Our text preserved two examples of such a deep love. The first example we see is in verses 23-31 where the Damascus church family loved Paul by caring for his physical needs. As we will read in a moment, a deep love for believers means...

Caring for other believers

Acts 9:23–25 ESV

23 When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, 24 but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, 25 but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket.

The Damascus believers were aware of the Jew’s evil plans and they could easily have allowed Paul to receive the fate he deserved. Instead, a wonderful example of brotherly love is preserved here. James 2:13 says, “mercy triumphs over judgement.” Mercy won the day in Acts 9:25. The church family willingly forgave Paul’s wicked past. Instead of treating him like an enemy, they ministered to him with much love and kindness by helping him escape. Church members are called to care for each other. Here we see examples, but in Paul’s epistles we actually have mandates such as we find in Ephesians 4 and 5 to care for the church family. Those who are not joined to a church body have no obligation to the church body because they are estranged. Those who are not joined to a church body are living outside God’s will.

After he escaped, Paul returned to Jerusalem where he continued to deeply love other believers and where other believers deeply loved him. Let’s continue reading our passage in verses 26 and 27...

Acts 9:26–27 ESV

26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. 27 But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.

If the Apostle Paul was to walk into our church right now and also ask to be a church member, would we prevent him from joining us? Certainly not! These verses are very interesting because the Jerusalem church almost passed up a tremendous opportunity! The trouble was that these Christians were so traumatized by Paul’s great persecution that they initially refused his application for church membership!

Past trauma drives the way we respond to present situations. Trauma prevents us from loving other believers! Trauma causes us to listen to the Devil when he causes us to believe, “I have to take matters into my own hands, because the only one who looks out for me is me.” That church had been significantly traumatized by Paul. Stephen was intensely loved by these Jerusalem believers, and Paul played a part in Stephen’s execution. Paul had personally dragged out perhaps thousands of men and women committing them to jail and other atrocities. Maybe Paul had been in some of these very same church member’s houses and dragged their own fathers, mothers, or spouses away. The Jerusalem believers had been significantly traumatized by Paul, yet we need to deal with trauma like the Jerusalem church did in this passage.

Trauma runs deep, but we must deal with it in Godly ways. You might be thinking, but pastor, you don’t know what it was like when.... Please stop. Don’t make excuses. Do you know that almost every major character in the Bible had significant trauma that God overcame? What about when Adam and Eve came face to face with God’s glory and wrath after sinning in the garden? What about Noah? Do you think he wasn’t traumatized by people clawing, scratching, and screaming trying to get onto the ark, or by simply knowing that everyone and everything he once knew was wiped off the face of the earth? Do you think Isaac did not experience trauma when his own father raised a knife over his head intending to sacrifice him? Do you think Moses was not traumatized as a baby by growing up separated from his real mother? Or witnessing the massive Egyptian armies get massacred at the Red Sea? Do you think Joseph was not traumatized when he was betrayed by his own brothers at a tender young age? Do you not think Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael were not traumatized when as teenagers, they were taken as slaves by the Babylonian army? I could go on. The Bible is full of stories of deeply traumatized people who fixed their eyes on God and accomplished significant things for His glory!

The problem is that painful experiences tend take our eyes off God and cause us to lose focus of the mission for a while. We cannot care for other people when we are in self-protection mode. It seems that most of the Jerusalem church was in this self-protection mode but these verses in Acts 9 reveal two keys ways they recovered from Saul’s trauma-inducing actions...

The first key is trusting God.

Look at verse 27 again. Barnabas willingly put himself at risk. He confidently trusted God by associating with Paul, then he took Paul to the apostles and advocated for him. Barnabas set an example of forgiveness and love for fellow believers. The church followed Barnabas’ example, and for this the church family was rewarded. More on that in a moment.

The second key to recovering from trauma is this… we must be actively involved in our local church.

The second key is being actively involved in our local church.

Where do we see these traumatized Jerusalem believers? They are in church, caring for one another and ministering to one another. The early church understood that when one member of the body suffers, the whole church body suffers. We have seen them time and time again demonstrate their knowledge of this principle. Here again, these believers made what must have been an emotionally challenging decision.

If you don’t catch any point this morning, catch this. Paul had personally imprisoned their loved ones, and yet all these church members reached out to Paul. Why? First they trusted that God was bigger than them, and second, they saw Paul differently. They saw Paul not as the trauma inducing person he once was but as a man who was becoming transformed into God’s image. (SLOW DOWN!!!) They saw for the first time, a man who had also been deeply traumatized by his own grievous sins against God. I wonder if Paul had nightmares of Stephen’s stoning and of other atrocities he committed. Paul too was a broken and traumatized person. Caring for one another as church members is key to recovering from trauma.

Because these believers properly dealt with trauma, God richly rewarded them. We can read of a few rewards in verses 28-29...

Acts 9:28–29 ESV

28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. 29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him.

The Jerusalem church significantly benefitted from Paul’s preaching. In verse 28, Paul defended the faith against the Greek Jews in that community. These were the same Jews who with Paul once were breathing threats and murder toward the church with him. Paul blessed his local church because I think he was one of a few people in that congregation, who was gifted and emboldened to stand up to them.

The Jerusalem believers also must have grown to love Paul, because we read in verse 29 that they worked together to help him escape. The bonds of church family are strong! These bonds enable a hodgepodge of people, abilities, and gifts, to work together for a common goal. And so Paul escaped.

When we properly deal with past trauma, other rewards are bestowed on us. Let’s look at verse 31...

Acts 9:31 ESV

31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

If these Christians had still been debating about Paul’s church membership, peace would not have existed. Caring for believers in Godly ways always brings peace to the church. Verse 31 also informs us that the church, the universal church which existed in all Jerusalem, Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace. How can this be true? They had been facing significant trauma at Saul’s hands. Never before had such a significant persecution existed. How can a giant reaping cause the Gospel to spread and the church to grow? How can peace come from turmoil and significant trauma? Simple, the believers feared God and so, in return, they were comforted by the Spirit. Traumatized people were used by God to multiply and edify the church across the known world!

The Jerusalem church really cared for each other, but another group of people, perhaps members of a local church, loved each other so intensely that a dead church member was resurrected!

(Ignore) Loving believers intensely (v36-42)

Acts 9:36–42 ESV

36 Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which, translated, means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. 37 In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 38 Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, “Please come to us without delay.” 39 So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 40 But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and prayed; and turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

Tabitha must have had a deep love for God and others. We know she faithfully used her spiritual gifts, and the people she ministered to loved her intensely in return. Perhaps these widows were church members, perhaps they were unsaved people from the community who benefitted from Tabitha’s outreach ministry. The same Peter who had once been a wishy-washy Christian raised, through God’s will and God’s power, this deceased sister back to life. God allowed this miracle to grow the local church. Verse 42 says that, “Many believed in the Lord.”

Deep love is a key principle these early churches model for us. This love willingly puts our own lives on the line for our brothers and sisters. Deep love causes a deep void to be felt when brothers or sisters depart from this life and into the presence of our Lord.

Challenge

As we close this portion of the service, please read verse 31 again with me,

Acts 9:31 ESV

31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

Our whole purpose is to fear God and keep His commandments. There are no promises that we will lead tens of thousands of people to the Lord as the apostles did. We are not called to be prosperous, but to be faithful. In a few weeks on Sunday night, we are going to learn about a man who prayed to lead just one man to the Lord. God answered that man’s prayer not too many years before he died but that one Jew went on to boldly proclaim the Gospel in places most of would not dare to go! The believers in these early churches were not driven by numbers, or goals. They simply loved and feared God and God decided it was good to significantly increase those congregations.

Justin, Ryan, Andrew, and Bethany, are you willing to care for and intensely love this congregation you are joining? Being a church member will be very difficult at times because our own siblings in the faith may turn their backs on our family. Being a member of our family will be hard because you will need to discipline your own brothers and sisters. And eventually, you will love people so deeply, that when beloved brothers and sisters die, you will deeply grieve. You will not grow in your faith unless you learn to deeply love God’s people. And we, your family covenant to love you intensely to the glory of God.

Ryan, Justin, Andrew, and Bethany, and everyone else here this morning, I charge you to live sold-out for God’s glory and continually grow in love for each other and you know what? We wouldn’t be holding this special service today if we were not already doing these things! So keep on fearing the Lord and continue to rely on the Spirit more and more every single day!

Ryan is on his way to the baptismal tank and we will catch up with him in a few minutes. While he is getting prepared for that, Justin, Andrew, and Bethany are coming forward because they desire to join our church body!

Membership interviews (Andrew, Bethany, Justin)

Will you please briefly share your salvation experience with us?

Who influenced your decision to place your faith in Jesus?

Was anyone present when you placed your faith in Jesus?

How is your life different because that decision?

Have you been baptized? Where/when?

Why do you wish to join First Baptist Church as Members?

SONGS while I transition to tank